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Every second Saturday of the month, 4 pm - Divine Liturgy in English of Sunday - Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family, Duke Street, London W1K 5BQ. Followed by refreshments.Next Liturgy: Saturday 14th April - 3pm Great Vespers, 4pm Divine Liturgy for Sunday after Pascha (Pascha is on 8th April)

Thursday, 5 December 2013

Both the UK's Conservative and Labour party leaderships are determined to undermine the Church, and to play down the sustained and targeted persecution of Christians worldwide. So much for the Conservatives being "the Church of England at prayer", and Labour's roots, of which it was once proud, in Methodism and Catholicism. Could this be anything to do with both parties' links, when in government, with "strategic allies" against Iran in the Middle East, namely Saudi Arabia, which has been funding and driving the extremist terrorists in Iraq and Syria? This is constitutionally a confessionally Christian country - what is the point of that if Britain cannot stand up for the Christian faith, as it once did from 1939-45, when it is under threat?

There was an "impassioned debate" in the House of Commons about the extent of global anti-Christian persecution.

Aid to the Church in Need reported that during a debate in parliament Tuesday calling on the UK government “to do more both in its foreign policy and through its aid work to defend and support people of Christian faith”, MPs accused front benchers of trying to widen it to a general discussion of human rights.

Following remarks from Mark Simmonds, Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, that “we should not be standing up for our co-religionists or Christians in particular,” Tony Baldry, MP for Banbury, stressed that the precarious situation of 200 million Christians required a definite response from government. He said: “This debate is entitled ‘persecution of Christians’ – with all due respect to my honourable friend, there is a risk of the foreign office not appreciating the real growing concern about the global persecution of Christians.”

Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, detailed some of the problems facing Christians around the world, as he expressed disappointment with the response from the front benches.

He said: “Within the last month, hundreds of people, from Nigeria to Eritrea to Kazakhstan to China, have been arrested and put in prison simply because of their faith, and when they go into prison they are denied due process. They are denied access to lawyers, they are sometimes even denied knowledge of the charges facing them, they can languish in prison for a long time and in horrible conditions. Any other overseas problem on that scale would have been a priority for the foreign office, yet the minister and the opposition front bench spokesman attempted to widen this topic rather than to zone in on the real issue – which is this is a particular group of people who are being persecuted.”

Shadow foreign office minister, Kerry McCarthy had also broadened the debate to include other groups whose human rights are being denied. She said: “I do not think that we should start carving up human rights by saying that some abuses are worse than others.

Pray for the Unity of the Apostolic Churches

The Society of St John Chrysostom promotes greater appreciation of the spiritual, theological and liturgical traditions of Eastern Christendom, works and prays for the unity of the Churches of East and West, and encourages support for the Eastern Churches :

- the Byzantine and Oriental Catholic Churches in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome (especially in their contemporary calling to promote reconciliation and the recovery of union between Catholics and Orthodox)- the Orthodox Church- the Oriental Orthodox Churches and- the Church of the East.

In the United Kingdom and Europe the Society, founded in 1926, is a group of Catholics of the Latin and Eastern Churches, along with our friends in other traditions, promoting awareness and friendship in the Christian West for our fellow Christians of the East - through prayer and liturgy, conferences and lectures, pilgrimage and ecumenical encounters.